Tragic Mansions, Signed by Rita Lydig

[Signed by Rita Lydig] Lydig, Mrs. Philip. Tragic Mansions. First Edition. 1927. Hardcover in very good minus condition (no dust jacket); book shows fading and bumped corners. Book is inscribed, “To one in whom I place my trust & believe he will save the situation . . . Faithfully, Rita Lydig, 1929.”

This rare book (no other copies are presently listed) was a De Profundis on fashionable society by the beautiful and stylish woman who was once its leading light. In 1927, however, she was ruined by ill health and debts. In better days, she was painted by Boldini, photographed by Baron de Meyer, attended the coronation of Czar Nicholas II, and traveled with an army of servants and forty Vuitton trunks. The book is a series of blind items about various friends and acquaintances, and the tragedy and desperation in their lives.

“At any fashionable dinner table in New York or Newport, there is likely to be an assemblage of guests whose sentimental history would make a shocking histoire scandaleuse.” --Rita Lydig